17. Tales of the Arctic Deep – with Sylvia Earle, Johan Rockström and Taylor Griffith
SYNOPSIS:
A special three part episode recorded onboard a Climate and Oceans expedition in the Norwegian Arctic. We’ll hear about the dark mysteries of the deepest realms of the ocean from “Her Deepness” herself, Dr. Sylvia Earle (possibly the most admired and loved oceanographer of the last century), followed by the latest Planetary Boundaries Earth science from Johan Rockstrom, and the role of ocean storytelling and immersive art installations from Taylor Griffith.
Together, their voices weave a tale of the predicament and possibility of the Arctic and high seas; how to sense the lifeworlds of all the creatures who glow and sparkle and live in the dark within the greatest unexplored part of Earth's biosphere; we learn about ocean exploration in the 21st century, the dangers of deep sea mining, and the role of discovery and art in bringing us into the pulsing heart of the planet’s watery body. I love this episode so much, and I hope you will too.
Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
Tales of the Arctic Deep
QUOTES:
Sylvia: The greatest part of Earth's biosphere — most of life on Earth — is inhabited by creatures who live in the dark.
Sylvia: The bioluminescence, the flash, the sparkle, the glow of living creatures, that firefly kind of light of the ocean may be one of the most common forms of communication on the planet.
Sylvia: What else don't we know? What else is down there? The greatest era of ocean exploration is just really beginning. I really feel so privileged to be a witness of a world that is really a different world.
Sylvia: It's vital for our existence — keeping the big old fish, coral reefs, deep sea systems, these intact systems, wherever they are. Old growth trees, trees that have taken a few hundred, let alone a few thousand years to grow, should be regarded as sacred. Embrace them as if your life depends on it.
Sylvia: I'm an optimist. I think we can do this. And as a witness, to be able to share the view, I think is a privilege.
Sylvia: Explore, document, understand. And bring that information back and encourage others to see for themselves. No child left dry. Get out there, kid, get wet. Be an explorer, be a witness, do what kids naturally do. Ask questions and never stop, and be kind, be compassionate with other creatures.
Sylvia: We're not the big boss of the world. We are utterly, totally dependent on maintaining the integrity of these closely knit systems that have taken literally billions of years to put into place. And we need humility, we need respect as we go forward. Because now we know, we're on the edge.
Sylvia: We are the creatures with a gift to go where by nature we're not equipped to go. I mean, imagine what a dolphin would think if it could go up in an airplane.
Sylvia: We've developed the habit of using the ocean as the ultimate place to put things we don't want
Sylvia: We're taught to be afraid of nature, and to be afraid of other humans. If it's not like us, then it's put aside with a combination of fear and not caring. And it's that otherness that separates us from other humans as well as all other forms of life.
Sylvia: To see them in their natural environment, to get to know that big moray eel that occupied that space. And we go back day and night, he'd be hanging out, and sometimes he was out of his little cave, but he always went back to that place. That was his home.
Alexa: It's another moment of seeing, of gazing into a truth that is profoundly more ancient than anything you could ever know. And all you can do is bow down and say, I share this with you, this life, this space.
Sylvia: These are shared experiences of exploration, of discovery, of documentation, of getting to know the creatures there, not to kill them, but to really ask those questions: Who are you? What are you doing here? How do you spend your days and nights? What's your role?
Sylvia: What is it that makes you, you? No, there's nobody else on the planet like you. What are you going to do, that you alone in all of history, can do because you're you? Look in the mirror, figure it out because you have power.
Sylvia: And if you want to join us to use your power for helping this network of Hope Spots, welcome aboard. You know, it's one of those places where the space is unlimited. We can take on as many hearts and minds as we want to join the chorus. It's an infinite orchestra. The world needs voices. The ocean needs your voice.
Me: This is the death of a thousand cuts. But I also think that it's a million brilliant points of light that heal it.
Taylor: One of the other hats I wear is as a studio artist and a contemporary art object maker. I do a lot of work with ghost nets and ghost gear, primarily pulled from the Eastern Pacific and bringing them into the studio to turn them into artworks that show in galleries.
Taylor: The deep ocean really is a space that is older than time. And the concept of time down there works so well, differently to how we perceive time on land. Ecosystems down there are millions of years old. They are the old growth forests of the sea.
Me: Every breath we take, or at least second breath, the rain that feeds the crops that we eat, that nourishes the soils. Our lives are obviously inextricably woven with the ocean, and that ocean itself, its beating heart, its veins, its own organs are pumped by this deep ocean.
SHOW LINKS
CREDITS
Cover Photo: National Geographic, August 1971